Dingle First Half Hat-Trick Sinks Stacks

It was just one of those days. We couldn’t have got off to a better start in this quarter final of the Co. Championship played in ideal conditions in Austin Stack Park on this Saturday evening (29th Sept). Joseph O’Connor won the throw-in from which Darragh O’Brien raced through to put over after just 15 seconds. But it took us another 18 minutes to get our second score – a pointed free by Darragh after Kieran Donaghy was fouled. However in between Dingle had scored 2-3 – their goals coming in quick succession in the 11th and 13th minutes. We added a third point in the 28th minute when good work by Pa McCarthy put Shane O’Callaghan through. But Dingle finished the stronger with a 3rd goal in the 29th minute followed by a point in added time to leave them with a commanding ten points lead at the break (3-4 to 0-3).

Hurting by that first half display our boys had a brilliant start to the second half, scoring five unanswered points in the first twelve minutes. Jack O’Shea, who couldn’t start the game because of a injury and who was introduced at half time, opened the scoring. Then two of our full back line got in on the act with a point each – Ronan Shanahan and Dylan Casey. The other two points came from Darragh O’Brien – one from a free after an umpteenth foul on Kieran Donaghy. Points were then exchanged – ours coming from another Darragh O’Brien free after a foul, this time, on Ronan Shanahan. But try as we did, those elusive goals didn’t come our way. In the closing ten minutes, which included five minutes of additional time, Dingle added a further four points to give them a deserved nine points victory which puts them into their second Championship semi final in three seasons.